


What's the plan, Vangelis?

by AssyEr



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Also kind of, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Blood and Violence, Dissociation, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders, Intrusive Thoughts, Jonny Vangelis - Freeform, Literal Sleeping Together, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Shooting, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Uhm, bit of comfort on the end, i love how thats a tag, jonny killing himself like a lot of times, kind of, no permanent death he comes back like a lot of times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27786679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssyEr/pseuds/AssyEr
Summary: "D’Ville was the one who took Vangelis life and destroyed it, made it its own and hid whatever was left of the boy. He didn’t even bother to change his name.Vangelis shoots, and d’Ville dies again."Jonny d'Ville kills himself and confronts Jonny Vangelis, much against his will.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	1. Billy Vangelis' boy

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags, all the content warnings there. If you think there's any I might have missed, please let me know!
> 
> The comfort is in the second chapter, but the cw still apply there

Jonny d’Ville closes and locks the door of his room.

He doesn’t know why he does that. Some false sense of safety, perhaps. A promise he already knows was never intended to be kept. There are currently five other people he lives with, without counting the ship herself, of course, and he knows that none of them could be stopped by a simple lock.

Still, he relaxes upon hearing the soft click as his finger presses the small panel next to the door.

Does it really matter whether the lock has a reason to be there? Is it not enough of a purpose for it to allow him to give his back to the door without feeling the need to turn around every five seconds?

D’Ville does just that, turns around to face the other side of the room, and goes to sit on a corner.

He never liked the corners. There was something about them, that made you ignore them, like an invisibility shield, whether you wanted or not. There was a reason why people sent children to stand there when they misbehaved. It made them easier to ignore. To forget.

Young Jonny used to think there was something on them. A monster, something that trapped you and took you away from the normal world, and left instead something similar enough to make people believe nothing had happened, but never quite right. That explained why whenever he had to draw the living room of his house for school he always forgot the little nightstand of the corner. That’s why whenever his mum left something inside the drawer on it she never found it again. That’s why he never got near it, why they never turned on the little lamp sitting on it.

It all seemed perfectly reasonable in the mind of a seven year old kid.

It also made him cry and tremble when his teachers would tell him to ‘go stand on the corner and think about what he had done’. He didn’t like standing there, he was afraid he was going to disappear, too, and be replaced.

Maybe that’s what they had wanted. Why they always told bad kids to go stand there.

Like most deeply rooted childish belief, it stayed with the first mate, even decades after. He didn’t believe that a monster was going to take him away, of course. But he also looked at corners quite differently than the rest of the crew.

Right now, he would have no problem on disappearing. In fact, it could be said that he was looking forwards to that, to be honest. He wouldn’t have locked the door if he hadn’t. Nor would have made sure to have his gun fully charged.

The first mate sat down on the corner, and stared at himself at the mirror right in front of him.

It was a recent installment, that. The last time he had sat there the idea came to him, tough he didn’t stole it from one of the bathrooms of the Aurora until a week after, fooling himself to think that it was for very different reasons that he took it there. Played his lie so convincible as to pass in front of it and look at his reflection almost daily. He guessed that he didn’t want the thing he was going to do to be its only use.

He looked horrible. Worn down. The clothes he wore always tended to be at least a size too big, but right now they made him look like a squalid kid, hungry.

Had he lost weight? He should start eating more, before Carmilla noticed.

The thinness, the greyness of his skin, and the trembling of his hands made him seem to be at the doors of death.

That last thought got a small chuckle out of him.

Very fitting. He was glad to be dressed for the occasion.

He let out another laugh, but it too was wrong. Too rough, too forced.

He supposed he should already get on with it.

With a serious expression once again, he grabbed the pistol from his holster and checked once more for bullets. A distraction, he knew, like everything else until now. But whatever, he could distract himself as much as he fucking pleased.

Jonny d’Ville raised the gun and while looking at himself on the mirror, opens his mouth and shoves the muzzle against the top of it.

He had been right. There was something strange in watching himself like this, almost as if he wasn’t the one doing it. As if the Jonny lying there in the corner, all small and weak, was just another one, another person. As if it was someone else that happened to share his face and skin who was about to kill himself.

Something dark inside of him squirmed in pleasure at watching the tears fall of his face. It was the same thing that had taken him there, that had put the mirror in front of him, and that will shoot the spaceship until she agreed to give him the recordings of what was about to happen.

He wondered if it was the same thing that enjoyed killing, that made him laugh in madness at the sound of bullets piercing skin, his or someone else’s.

Jonny couldn’t imagine himself without all the constant murder. Maybe because it was impossible, maybe because there was no Jonny d’Ville without it, maybe because it was already a core part of himself.

And maybe, if right now he was watching the thing that enjoyed putting the muzzle in his mouth and let it there until the tears began streaming, maybe he had been replaced.

Perhaps the thing was the replacement, the monster of the corner, and it had put the mirror there so the real Jonny could realize how bereft of, well, himself, he truly was. To make him known that he had been taken so long ago, that it was enjoying himself.

Because that couldn’t be him, in the mirror, could it?

Certainly not the same kid who couldn’t stand to be close to the walls, to be sent to the corner.

Jonny’s finger pulled the trigger.

“What’s the plan, Vangelis?” Rob asked him mockingly. “You say all those pretty words, but I bet ya just gonna end rotting here like the rest of us”

Jonny punched him right on the face, starting a new fight between both of them.

He had been talking once again of getting out, of leaving New Texas. It was no secret that he hated the town, _everybody_ hated the town. But he refused to be like the rest, he said, he refused to stay. One day, he would steal a spaceship and get the fuck out of the planet. Get himself a job in a bar, or perhaps as part of a crew.

Anywhere but here.

Of course they mocked him, Jonny thought as he got his own nose broken. They knew that they couldn’t get out, and he talking about leaving was just rubbing salt on the wound.

But he was different. He had no one there. Well, no one that he wasn’t willing to leave behind. And yes, maybe he didn’t exactly had a step by step, lots of perfectly made instructions, per se. Perhaps he hadn’t thought further than get a gun, learn to drive, steal a ship.

He didn’t need anything more, he repeated to himself, getting up from the dry floor and spitting blood on it, before marching once again towards Rob.

He was going to kill himself before letting the desert destroy him like the rest.

When he wakes up he isn’t lost, or disoriented. He had been doing this long enough as to not get surprised anymore.

He stays still, instead, eyes closed, while trying to feel where his limbs ended up. His legs aren’t on his chest anymore, instead lie open on the floor, still bended on the knee. The arm that had been holding the gun had extended completely, ended up palm up on the floor. He wasn’t holding the pistol anymore, but he knows it couldn’t be far.

His other hand is right next to his stomach, and he feels the fingers wet with small drops of blood. They weren’t big enough to flow, but they still left a tingling sensation on his skin, and Jonny decided to stop thinking about it else he would be too tempted to move.

Then came his head. It hurt like hell, and the blood and bits of everything that was supposed to be inside made his hair tangle and pull, feeling horrible itchy. He can taste metal on his mouth, which makes him almost throw up, and the smell is no better, but he holds still.

Finally, when he gets tired of pretending to be dead, he open his eyes.

Immediately he sees himself once again, on the mirror. He relaxes his face, and stops breathing, and finally looks like the corpse he is supposed to be.

He doesn’t move as he watches the blood on the wall behind him flow down to the floor, a small pool already forming. His pants gets wet, and so does his white shirt, but he doesn’t worry. It’s not like anyone would be so stupid as to ask him about some badly-washed red spots.

Jonny d’Ville stays still and without breathing until his body can’t take it anymore, and his hand twitches, ruining the picture. He moves then, sits up as if a spell had been broken.

And it had. His hand had moved, and everything was wrong now. It wasn’t the same as when he had killed himself, his pose had been tainted by that stupid reflex, the evidence of life. The lie had grown like a tumor, distorted his small bubble of illusion into something grotesque and mean. The reflection on the mirror laughed at his defeat.

The first mate sits straight, and crosses his legs. He doesn’t worry about the blood, doesn’t care. He was going to get only dirtier, anyway. To avoid the wet feeling was stupid and pointless.

He takes a moment to decide how to do it next. It’s not like he has a routine, so he tries different poses, eyes always locked in the figure in front of him. He picks his gun and takes it to his stomach, first.

It would be a painful death, but also slow, and he doesn’t feel like being alive any longer.

Next he tries the side of his head, but he barely feels it. Gave him a dull feeling, not what he was looking for.

He moves it below his jaw, and the cold metal on his sensible skin makes him shudder. He presses a little harder, turning his face to the ceiling, and tough the picture doesn’t do much to him, the discomfort gets a few tears more out of him, and so he keeps it there. It’s a bit harder to breath like this, and his neck soon starts to ache.

Still, it’s not the death he’s craving right now.

Maybe later.

Jonny lowers the gun, and his head lowers automatically, relieving the strain. He’s got his mouth open, he realizes, and his teeth click when he closes it.

The figure on the mirror looks impatient at him. D’Ville raises the gun once again, and lays the muzzle in between his eyes, on the top part of his nose.

Yes, that feels right. He pushes with both his head and the weapon, and moves his eyes between the barrel and the mirror before pulling the trigger once more.

“What’s the plan, Vangelis?” asks his neighbor when he sees him entering his old house.

It had been years since he had put a feet on the place he had grown up, but still felt like home, much to his disgust. If everything goes like planned, Jonny had thought, it would be the last time he saw it. A woman had arrived into town, on a spaceship. He only needs to finish all pending issues with Jack, and then he would be free to go.

As he had always planed.

Only one last job.

But of course, it hadn’t gone well. He hadn’t been counting with his noisy neighbor sitting on the porch of her house that night, gun in hand.

She probably knows what’s gonna happen. Things like that, they aren’t unusual in a town like this.

Still, she had to watch him. And confront him about it, too.

What did she even want to know? His plan? He kills his father (and only him if she keeps her mouth shut), he pays his last debt, he steals the ship, and goes to live somewhere else. Somewhere he can be in peace, a new start.

He repeats that last sentence to himself like a mantra, holding onto it as he climbs the steps of the small stairs before standing in front of the door.

“Shut the fuck up,” he answers her, and enters his old house.

This time he doesn’t bother pretending to be dead. He knows that the picture would be wrong even before he opened his eyes. The wound on his face would be healed, and even if the blood probably covered the intact skin, it was still wrong.

Two bullets less. He wonders if anyone else knew.

Aurora surely did. She always behaved weirdly around him after, and he always had to fight for days before she gave him the recordings, and deleted the backups.

He doesn’t know if she told Nastya, however. He knew that things were happening between both of them. It was hard not to, as they both behaved like bloody teenagers when around the other. Well, talking to each other. It was hard not to be around the spaceship when you were in the middle of space.

Relationship aside, he doesn’t think she did. The princess hadn’t said anything to him, at least, and she didn’t seem like the kind of person that wouldn’t confront him upon receiving that kind of information.

And the doctor? He knew for a fact that whether she knew or not, it didn’t make a difference as long as he didn’t mess with his mechanism.

Jonny doesn’t know what to do with that train of thought, now.

What conclusion had he been expecting to reach, and why did he felt betrayed? It’s not as if he wanted them to know.

He didn’t.

Really.

It would just complicate things. This was easier.

The first mate leads his gun against the side of his head, not caring about rightness or pictures anymore, and shoots without another thought.

“What’s the plan, Vangelis?”

Jack smiles after he refuses his offer, as if he knew something that Jonny didn’t. As if the possibility of him refusing was ridiculous to him, as if knowing he was only playing when saying no.

He still has blood around his chest, not that it would be that strange of him. Most of his clothes had now bloody spots in some place or another, and Jonny has long since stopped worrying about getting them off completely.

The clothes are not however only spotted with the blood of his father, nor are the only thing covered in red. The pistol he has on his holster, an alien thing, a present, is covered by red dots, both small and big.

Jonny closes his hand around the grip, grinning even wider, glad that Jack asked.

D’Ville wakes ups once more, and once more he tries to pretend he didn’t. He plays his old game of staying still, trying to get his mind to shut up, to stop thinking about Jack and his father and his life before.

About Vangelis.

Jonny Vangelis was a boy who didn’t know what he was doing, who only wanted to escape and was willing to do anything to do it. Even put himself in another cage, because that’s how stupid the kid was.

He hates him. And he knows Vangelis hates him too. They don’t like each other, and that’s a fact. The only thing they have in common is their first name, and only because d’Ville refuses to give that to him. Vangelis got Vangelis, and Jonny got Jonny. That simple.

Doesn’t make it easier, tough. The boy was bloody stubborn, that’s what he was, and refused to go.

D’Ville gets tired of snarling at the ghost of a dumbass and instead decides to do something useful with his time. Like killing himself.

He opens his eyes, almost not caring at what he sees, but forces himself to stare at his reflection.

That was Jonny d’Ville, musician, immortal, pirate, and suicidal, apparently, but in a fun way. That was the man the kid hated. He doesn’t want to understand why, so he pretends he sees nothing wrong in the smile the mirror gives him back.

God, there was so much blood.

How was he supposed to clean all that up?

He knows he doesn’t have much left by how coherent his thoughts are becoming. Worries about the future and the such. He guesses the next bullet will be the last.

For now, at least, he consoles himself.

Or the monster in the mirror.

Probably both.

He thinks about it for a moment, and then decides that yes, by under his jaw would be fitting. He remembers the way the muscles on his neck strained at holding himself at gunpoint, and wonders for how long he could maintain the position.

He tries.

One, two, three minutes, the cold of the metal kissing him there where his short excuse of a beard ended, and he refuses to look anywhere but at the reflection eyes. By the fifth they start to transform, and he doesn’t recognize them as his own, if he ever did. They seem to be truly looking at him, now, and the face who was not his face smiles amused.

D’Ville feels the mouth of his gun press even harder, feels his skin cut where a sharp metal edge digs, and the reflection laughs when he finally lets out a whimper. He tries to put it down, and panics upon realizing he can’t. The hand holding it is no longer his own, either, but belongs now to the face in the mirror, too.

He looks at it, and it looks back, full of mockery and anger, and d’Ville finally recognizes the face. It’s not, as he had first thought, the monster on the corners he feared as a child. No, he realizes that the man in the mirror _is_ Jonny Vangelis, and if there’s any monster, any impostor, it’s him.

D’Ville was the one who took Vangelis life and destroyed it, made it its own and hid whatever was left of the boy. He didn’t even bother to change his name.

He can hear the trigger being gently pressed, but not enough yet to actually shoot the bullet and end with it. Jonny d’Ville is properly crying now, and from the mirror Jonny Vangelis lets out a crude laugh.

They both know what Vangelis is thinking. If that really was the monster of the corners, that quivering pretense of a person, Vangelis was an idiot for fearing it for so long. If that was the worst it could do to him, well.

Vangelis shoots, and d’Ville dies again.

“What’s the plan, Vangelis?”

Jonny is a shivering mess from where he stands in from of the vampire. He is covered in blood, not his, and tears that he refuses to acknowledge. On the end of his right arm there is a pistol, a useless colt that he knows can’t do more than annoy Carmilla, but it gives him some instance of security.

On his left, he is holding the controls of the airlock located in the small room he had managed earlier to lock the doctor in.

He doesn’t know what the fuck he was doing, and he didn’t have any plan besides get her out of the ship. He only knows that he is tired, and trembling, and he doesn’t want to hear that question ever again.

She is looking at him with a calm expression, as if daring him to do it. As if she didn’t believe he was capable.

He was.

_He was._

He repeats that to himself on his mind. He didn’t need her any more, he wasn’t some poor kid desperate to escape. He had found a home in the Aurora, and was determined to keep it.

To hell with Carmilla.

Maybe Vangelis needed her, but he had decided that he didn’t want to be Vangelis anymore. He might have been thinking a bit too much into the theatrics when thinking about a new name, but that was irrelevant now.

He was Jonny d’Ville, and Jonny d’Ville was not a small kid. He was a scoundrel bastard, and a murderer, and had no problem with pressing the button that would get him and Nastya and the Aurora and Ashes free of her.

He was Jonny d’Ville.

Why couldn’t he do it, then?

“I’ve decided to change it,” he managed to get out, in a mocking tone. That seemed the kind of voice Jonny d’Ville would use. “It’s Jonny d’Ville now”

She only smiled at him.

_Jonny d’Ville,_ he repeated under his breath.

D’Ville would press the button now, without a second thought.

He said it once more and then, holding to the picture he had consciously decided to adopt as his own, ejected Carmilla from the Aurora.


	2. First Mate Jonny d'Ville

When he wakes up for the last time there’s no hesitation on opening his eyes, but also no mirror in front of him. He is confused, for a moment, until he notices that his gun is also missing.

That’s when he gets scared.

He tries to move and get up, search for his gun, but there are hands holding his, and so he goes quiet with the realization that he’s not alone in the room anymore.

“It’s okay, you idiot. It’s me” the person says, and Jonny relaxes because there’s only one person who could call him that in a situation like this. Nastya lets go of his hands, only to try and get some of the blood on his face out. “Come on, Aurora got a bath ready for you”

Jonny really doesn’t know what to say, and only lets her drag him to the bathroom.

It’s not that strange of a situation, really. Jonny has sit with Nastya in the bathtub plenty of times to help get mercury out of her hair, and he had reluctantly let her return the favor a fair amount, too. But it has always been because of some experiment, or accident, or whatever the narrative decided to throw at them. But this was different.

There’s not a chance that Nastya didn’t know what had happened, he thinks as she helps him get naked, save from his underwear. She must have been the one who got rid of the mirror, and his gun (which he would have to steal from her later, because there’s no way he would be _asking_ ).

And yet she hadn’t said anything.

She… he had made sure that she never got to find his, ‘hobby’.

His feet are wet, and he realizes he is entering the tub.

“Say something,” Jonny asks her, because he can’t stand the silence.

Nastya makes him look to the ceiling, and with a hand on his forehead, pours a cup of water on his hair. He closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the warm water pass through him, but opens them again when her hands leaves him. “Here,” she says, offering a bar of soap. “You can start washing your body”

Jonny grabs it, and once Nastya’s hands are free again they go back to his head, trying to get the bigger bits out before really starting washing his head.

He feels guilty, thinking about how his sister must be feeling. For a moment he considers saying something, anything to make the situation better, but it’s not like he has anything. Telling her that the last shot hadn’t been his didn’t really sound like a good idea, and. Well. He didn’t even believe it himself. He didn’t need her worrying about his sanity too.

Besides, Jonny d’Ville was a scoundrel bastard. He didn’t need to give no explanation.

“My underwear itches,” it’s what he says instead, because, well. It did. It was practically soaked in blood and Jonny.

She doesn’t pay him much attention. “Well, get it off, then,” Nastya says with a stern voice.

He does exactly that, throwing the barely-composed piece of cloth with the rest of his clothes. Now that he doesn’t have an excuse to talk, the silence starts to weight him even more, and Jonny goes back to silently wash himself.

Nastya couldn’t be that mad with him, he tries to tell himself. She wouldn’t be treating his hair with so much kindness if she was, right? His sister is patiently disentangling every knot carefully, and he barely feels anything. He finishes long before her.

“I’m sorry” he whispers, glad that he doesn’t have to look at her in the face.

The first mate can hear her sight. “Close your eyes, Jonny”

He does as he is told, and pulls his head back once again with the slightest press of her fingers below his jaw. Nastya pours another cup of water into his face, more slowly this time, and Jonny can feel all the gross stuff detaching and falling with the liquid. He feels lighter, even as the engineer scratches the bits that refused to let go of him off.

She repeats the process once more, until she is satisfied. Jonny hears her put the cup on the floor, but she still doesn’t let go of her face.

After a few seconds, he opens his eyes.

“Hey,” he says when he is faced with his sister looking directly at him. Still, he doesn’t try to move away.

“Hey,” she repeats after him, and with a finger scratches something out of his eyebrow, if only to have something to do.

And Jonny enjoys the attention, he really does, but he can’t stand not knowing what she’s thinking right now. When he finally decides to say something, Nastya cuts him. “I’m not angry. I… we can talk in the morning. Let’s get you to bed first, okay?”

He nods slightly, knowing that she could if not see it, then feel it with her hands.

Nastya gets up to get him some new, clean clothes that he gladly puts on, and then guides him out of the room. He notices when she hurries them both out of his bedroom, barely giving him half a chance to get to look at the mess he had made. Not that he would have tried to. Or wanted.

Instead she gets them to her room, the one she barely uses anymore because she spends most nights on the lower levels of the ship, where it’s warm.

She gets them there, and practically forces Jonny to lay down on the bed, making a point in making sure he’s comfortable, getting a few extra blankets out because she knows he gets hot when sleeping.

Nastya leaves him alone for a second, much to his confusion, until she comes back with a glass of water, which she leaves on the nightstand next to him. Just in case, she mutters upon noticing his confused stare, and goes to lay besides him.

He is warm, and Nastya is always cold, and that’s all Jonny allows himself to think of the way she holds, _cuddles_ , him. That’s all.

“Goodnight,” he tells her, because what else is he supposed to say?

“Night,” she answers, before closing her eyes and digging her face onto him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you feel like so, kudos and comments literally make my day.


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